


No Hard Feelings

by orphan_account



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fix-It, Hallucinations, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Spider-Man: Far From Home (Movie) Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-09
Updated: 2019-07-13
Packaged: 2020-06-25 00:45:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,688
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19734955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Nearly a decade after Tony Stark saved the universe with a snap of the Infinity Gauntlet, Peter Parker thinks he's made peace with the loss, and put the past behind him. And then Mr. Stark shows up in his kitchen one night, and it becomes clear that isn't true. What is he supposed to do when his old mentor keeps showing up to interrupt his new life?





	1. Chapter 1

The first time it happens, Peter is in the miniscule kitchen of his Queens apartment, making Chicken Piccata and trying to run through the issues with a portable water purifier that Parker Industries is supposed to be rolling out in a few months. 

He’s stuck on methods of utilizing the waste output, and he thinks he added too much lemon juice to his sauce, and a part of his brain is also thinking about the warehouse that Wade wants to steak out tonight, and why bad guys always seem to hang out at abandoned warehouses when they’d be so much better off if they just did their evil deeds out in the ‘burbs …

So at first, he doesn’t make a conscious note of it, other than his lizard brain rolling over and letting its tongue loll out in pleasure – a gentle caress at the nape of his neck, rough fingers carding through his hair, making small circles on his scalp. _This is nice,_ Peter thinks.

Then a comforting weight settles on his shoulder.

“Smells good, kid,” says a gruff, achingly familiar voice. “What’s for dinner?”

Peter feels every muscle in his body – from trapezius to pinky toe – tense. All the air in his lungs promptly exits them in one shaky exhalation. Slowly, slowly he turns his head to the left. Warm brown eyes, crinkled around the edges with good humor. The last time he’d seen them, they’d been clouded over with death.

Tony Stark has his chin hooked over Peter’s shoulder, giving him a lopsided smile as he reaches out for the wooden spoon in Peter’s hand to steal a taste of the sauce he’s been stirring.

Very deliberately, Peter puts the spoon down. He turns the knob on the stovetop to the off position, and scoots the pan off the top burner. Then he takes two long steps backwards, carefully avoiding jostling the man beside him. He keeps his eyes schooled on the kitchen tiles and clenches his hands into fists by his side to disguise the tremor that runs through them.

“Will you excuse me, please?” he says, thinking vaguely that it would be a bad idea to antagonize the apparition. “I’m not feeling well.”

“Pete?” Mr. Stark’s voice, thick with concern, echoes in Peter’s ears as he flees to the bathroom and locks the door behind him. 

With shaky hands, he turns the water on in the shower as hot as it will go and climbs into the tub, still in his jeans and t-shirt. The water stings his skin, but in a good way. In a way that lets him know that he’s here, he’s real, even if the things he’s seeing aren’t.

Curling into a tight ball, Peter allows himself to be enveloped in a curtain of steam. Two words run on a loop through his head: _Not again. Not again. Not again._

*

When Peter was 16, he should have been 21. He came back from the dead five years out of sync with the world around him and the first thing he really remembers doing – after the battle, and the blood, and the loss despite the victory – is putting on a dark suit, having May help him tie his tie, and standing straight and solemn while Pepper laid Mr. Stark’s old arc reactor into a little pond. He didn’t understand then, doesn’t even now, really, how that was supposed to help them in the grieving. But he wasn’t rude enough to say so.

There was a boy at the memorial who Peter had never met before. He was about Peter’s age, or what would have been Peter’s age if he weren’t behind now, eternally. Peter had been jealous, at first. He’d thought himself Mr. Stark’s only protégé, but as it turns out there was someone else all along. Someone who got five more years with the man. Years that Peter would have given almost anything for.

But all that faded into the background hours later when he was standing at the kitchen sink in Mr. Stark’s cabin, splashing his face with water, and his eyes had wandered over to a photo sitting right there on a small shelf. It was the Stark Internship photo they’d faked for May, back before she knew the truth. They’re both giving the other bunny ears, internship certificate dangling upside down between them. On the glass, Peter could see an old, smudgy finger print right above the swoop of his own hair.

It’s wasn’t a panic attack. _It’s wasn’t._ But it was awfully close. Peter had felt like he couldn’t breathe. He’d gripped the edge of the sink and heard the porcelain crack, sending a hairline fracture running into the bowl.

The horrifying knowledge had come on him all of a sudden, brain working in its usual lightening-quick fashion. The place hadn’t been exactly cluttered with photos, but this one had been tucked away in a spot where Mr. Stark would have seen it multiple times a day.

_He cared,_ Peter had thought with a strange exuberance. And then: _He cared,_ with a dreadful ache. It meant that Mr. Stark had been looking at that photo of them for years, letting the guilt grow like he always did. It meant he had thought of Peter when he made the decision to risk himself on one last attempt to put the world right.

It meant it was Peter’s fault he was dead. Peter’s fault that Morgan didn’t have a dad anymore, and Pepper didn’t have her husband. The certainty settled in his gut, and that’s where it had lived ever since.

There were other things he learned later: that Mr. Stark had chosen him, had believed in him, or at least in his good intentions. But none of that changed the core truth that he had also died for him, and if Peter had been better, maybe that wouldn’t have happened.

He had spent eight months running away from the guilt. He ran off to Europe with his friends, he got into an unnecessary pissing contest with one Nick Fury, he proved himself to be very, very bad at picking allies, he learned what it felt like to be hit with a literal train. And once he had done all that, and averted outright disaster, he hobbled back to Queens and found that he couldn’t run anymore. Not even home. 

After that, he had new fuel for his pyre of guilt. He had Happy telling him “I don’t think Tony would’ve done what he did if he didn’t know that you were going to be here after he was gone.” How was that not supposed to reduce Peter to molecules?

The thing with MJ, well, it couldn’t really be a thing once the world knew who he was. Peter had done the only thing he could think to do at the time. He had hidden himself away in the Avenger’s Compound until the hubbub died down.

It hadn’t actually taken very long – six months, all told before the next super-powered person in a cape had arrived on the scene. Ms. Marvel had certainly made a splash, taking on an underground Hydra cell in Jersey City and introducing the world to Inhumans in one fell swoop. That’s one unexpected benefit of living in a world rife with new heroes. There’s always a new flavor of the month.

It felt like longer than six months, locked away in the compound. It felt so much longer. Peter had felt stir crazy from a lack of purposeful activity and worry about his family and friends now that his face and name were just out there in the wind. 

That’s when Mr. Stark started showing up.

One night he was just there at the foot of Peter’s bed, half of his body charred from the snap, eyes covered over with a milky haze of death, looking at Peter with accusation written clear in his expression. He never spoke. He didn’t have to. Peter already knew everything he could possibly say.

At first, Peter had thought it must be some illusion, Quentin Beck back from the grave to break another little part of his soul. But that tingle that emanated at the top of his spine, alerting him to those illusions, hadn’t even quivered. 

Mr. Stark wasn’t always there, but he did keep popping up perodically, not just sitting in judgment at the end of Peter’s bed at night. He clocked him out of the corner of his eye as he went to pour his morning coffee, through a curtain of rain as Peter ran laps in the big field in the back of the compound despite inclement weather, one time on the lid of the toilet seat as Peter emerged from the shower. And each time, it reduced Peter to a trembling, snot-nosed mess.

“I know,” he had shouted to the figure, that time out in the pouring rain. “Don’t you think I fucking know?”

Hallucination is the word the SHIELD-approved therapist had used when Peter had finally gone looking for some help. Dr. Hamantaschen used words like trauma and intrusive thoughts and survivor’s guilt.

They figured out that Peter didn’t respond to psychotropic drugs because his healing factor just burned through them too quickly. But acknowledging what was happening and talking it all through did seem to help. It took … a while. But eventually Mr. Stark started visiting less and less. 

The last time that Peter saw him had been at a convenience store near Albany, there in the periphery of his vision at the end of an aisle while Peter watched churros rotating in the little snack warmer up near the cash registers. His hands had trembled, but he clenched them into fists and did the breathing exercises that Dr. H had taught him, and then he walked away from the churros and bought a Code Red and some Cheetos instead. Mr. Stark hadn’t followed him out the door.

That had all been years ago. Eight? Nine? Peter had gone to college (NYU, not MIT because he and Dr. H had both agreed there would be too many triggers). Then he had used the trust fund and the tech that Mr. Stark had left him to start his own company. Peter wanted to make a difference in the world in more ways than just being a masked hero. He wanted to try to live up to the legacy that his mentor had left behind.

He had thought he was ok. Honestly, he had thought he was cured, though Dr. H had never liked language like that. She said it wasn’t productive. But now? Now Peter is fully clothed in his shower, having a panic attack and hiding from a figment of his own brain.

When his pulse slows to a close-to-normal level, and he can sort of breath, and the water spluttering from the shower head has gone icy cold, Peter pulls himself out of the tub, strips off his sodden clothes, and wraps himself in a robe. He checks every inch of his apartment, but Mr. Stark is gone. 

Peter packs a bag and calls Dr. H to make an appointment up at the compound.

*

“You said it was different from the last time you had these hallucinations. How?”

Peter’s sitting in an armchair in Dr. H’s office, across from the woman herself in her sharply-tailored suit and her mass of greying dreads tied up on top of her head with a sunny yellow scarf. She leans toward him when she talks and leaves plenty of room after her words for him to speak. She’s trained impeccably, if nothing else.

“Well, he spoke this time, for one,” Peter says. “And for another, he didn’t look, well … Injured, I guess?” He doesn’t want to say dead, but that’s what he means. “He looked normal. Like he was before. Happy, even.”

“Hm,” Dr. H says, thoughtfully. “So your reaction to it wasn’t because of anything specifically traumatic that happened during your hallucination?”

“You mean besides talking to my dead mentor?” Peter deadpans. “Nope. All pretty normal shit, doc." 

She purses her lips together, giving him an expression that tells him she can be patient, but he’s on thin ice.

“It was … Nice?” Peter says, reluctantly. “For a minute there, it was nice. And then I remembered what it was like before. And I panicked. I just … I thought I was past all this, you know? I thought …” 

He doesn’t even know how to finish.

“Peter,” Dr. H says, bending forward to rest her elbows on her knees. “I need you to be really, really honest with me now. Do you feel like you’re in danger of hurting yourself or others?”

“What?” Peter asks. “No, doc. No, I’m not. I swear. I’m just here because I want to put this behind me.” 

“I don’t think so either,” the doc says, nonchalantly. “But it’s the sort of thing I have to ask. Just to check in.”

“Ok,” Peter nods, knitting his fingers together and squeezing until his knuckles go white. “Well, the answer is no. I maybe crazy, Dr. H, but I’m not dangerous.”

“You know I don’t like that word, Peter,” Dr. H says with a sigh. “But I believe you. So what it comes down to is you’ve been here before, right? We know the medications don’t work, but more practical methods are effective. Controlling your breathing, avoiding obvious triggers, being mindful. I know it’s frustrating, and I know it’s work, but it’s the best strategy moving forward.”

The thought is just exhausting. Peter takes a moment to bury his face in his hands. When he raises up he takes a deep breath in through his nose, releases it through his mouth.

“Ok, doc. I guess … I guess I can do that. Not like I have much of a choice.”

“Can I … Make an observation, Peter?” she asks, tentatively.

Peter shrugs his shoulders in a tiny, tight movement. 

“It’s very interesting to me that Mr. Stark is appearing to you now the way he does. It’s a big contrast to what you were seeing before, and I can’t help but think that’s a positive development.”

“Doc,” Peter protests. “I really can’t see how you can spin this as positive right now.”

“Peter right now you’re seeing this as a step backward, a personal failure. But what if it’s not?”

“What else could it be?”

“What if it’s your mind giving you a chance to let go of the guilt you’ve been carrying around surrounding this incident? Mr. Stark shows up happy, and healthy, and pleased to see you? Maybe it’s an opportunity to say some of the things you need to say to him. To admit to yourself that you weren’t to blame for his death and just release that burden.”

As soon as she says it, Peter can feel himself pulling back. It’s one of the things that he and Dr. H have always, always disagreed on. She wants Peter’s recovery to include rejecting fault for Mr. Stark’s death, and that’s really not a thing Peter can accept. He can’t possibly let go of the guilt, so instead he wants to make sure he uses it in the best way possible, to make sure Mr. Stark’s sacrifice wasn’t in vain.

“You want me to start talking to myself too, now, doc?” he quips. He knows it’s a defense mechanism, but sometimes you need a good defense.

Dr. H gives him a sad smile.

“I really think you should try it,” she says. “If he shows up again. This could all still be an isolated incident.”

Peter’s returning smile is wan.

“Somehow, doc, I don’t think I’ll be so lucky.”

She sets up another appointment for them to talk in a week, and tells him to call anytime if he needs her. They shake hands, and Peter feels bad, like he’s disappointed another authority figure by not agreeing with her about the whole guilt thing. That’s … Probably something he should unpack next session.

*

Of course it isn’t an isolated incident. The next time it happens is a few days later. Peter is splayed out on his couch, signing off on blueprints before they go on to beta production when his eyes flicker up from his work.

Mr. Stark is sitting in one of the overstuffed leather armchairs that flank the fireplace. He’s got one leg elegantly draped over the other while he writes out notes and sketches in a battered graph paper notebook. Just as Peter spots him, he raises his head to look at him over his glasses frames.

They’re not one of the flashy colored pairs Peter always used to see him in, or even the blocky EDITH glasses. They’re the thin-framed reading glasses Peter only saw him use a couple of times in real life, when forced to do business on actual paper. He’s wearing a worn, black AC/DC t-shirt and faded jeans, and he’s barefoot.

Peter’s brain stutters at that detail. Why would he add that? It feels strangely intimate, the idea of Mr. Stark lounging around in Peter’s apartment barefoot. The soles of his feet are pale, and soft, and vulnerable.

His pulse ratchets up several notches, but he manages to control his breathing as he watches a lazy smile form on Mr. Stark’s face. He removes the reading glasses.

“You’re staring,” he says, and the rumble of that voice feels like a slash against Peter’s chest. “See something you like, kid?”

The laugh Peter emits at the line is a high, punched-out huff of breath. 

“What, um …”

He’s trying to take the doc’s advice, but he feels supremely awkward speaking to his own hallucination. He powers through it.

“What are you working on?”

Mr. Stark flips the notebook page over so Peter can see it. It’s a spiky but detailed sketch of one of the Iron Man armor thrusters. 

“Just trying to work out some of the issues on the heat sink for the newest suit. You?”

“Approving the latest batch of beta designs.”

“Trouble concentrating?” Mr. Stark effortlessly raises one eyebrow at him.

“Uh, no, just wracking my brain over this last project.” 

“Maybe I can help.”

He sets down his notebook and walks over to the couch and into Peter’s space.

“Move the legs, I’m sitting here,” he says.

Peter makes to sit up properly, but apparently he doesn’t move fast enough, because Mr. Stark is reaching down and lifting his legs up by the ankles and settling himself onto the couch cushion. Then he pulls Peter’s legs into his lap. 

The unexpected contact zips through Peter’s body like an electric shock. He’s momentarily stunned, and only comes back to attention when Mr. Stark starts snapping in his face.

“Pete, hand ‘em over,” he says.

“Oh,” Peter says, dumbly. Then: “Oh! Right. Here, this is the one that I’m struggling with.”

He shuffles through the pile of blueprints until he comes to the one for the water purifier, and hands it over to Mr. Stark.

The man hums to himself in concentration as he scans the plans, absently wrapping a hand around Peter’s bare ankle as he does and rubbing slow circles into the bone with his thumb. Peter bites his lower lip hard and very carefully does not react.

“It’s the waste product you’re worried about?” Mr. Stark asks. 

Peter perks up when he effortlessly diagnoses the problem.

“Yeah!” he says, excitedly. “I mean, the company is really pushing a green agenda. I don’t want the project to fail on that front.”

“Sure, sure,” Mr. Stark says. 

He speaks as though he knows all this already. Which he does, Peter reminds himself, because he is literally inside Peter’s head. All of this is happening inside his head. Mr. Stark’s hand moves slowly down to Peter’s foot, thumb digging his thumb into the arch with the perfect amount of pressure. Jesus, Peter’s brain is a weird place.

“Have you thought about compression?” Mr. Stark asks.

Peter perks up at that, brain already whirring around the possibilities.

“To what purpose?” he says, curiously.

He sits up, leaning forward so he and Mr. Stark can look over the blueprints together. It jostles his foot out of the man’s hand, but they end up with their thighs pressed together, heads almost knocking into one another.

“It will be mostly organic material that we’re removing,” he allows. “You’re thinking as an energy source? A sort of quick-form peat?”

“You’ll be distributing it to mostly underdeveloped communities, right? That’s a secondary problem solved right there. Commercial market mostly for hikers, campers?” 

“Yeah,” Peter says. “No, that makes a lot of sense. It’s just a question of how …” 

“Pete,” Mr. Stark stops his eyes just short of a full roll. “You already have a miniaturized compression system in your web shooters.”

Peter scrunches his face together at his own stupidity.

“That’s why you’re the genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, I guess,” he says. 

“Hey, I object to the moniker of playboy,” Mr. Stark say, cuffing him playfully on the back of his head. “I’m reformed now.”

“Of course,” Peter says, sardonically. “My mistake.”

They talk over each other as they draw up revisions to the purifier plans, and then revisions to each other’s revisions. It all feels so natural, working in tandem with Mr. Stark, that Peter doesn’t notice the amount of time that has passed until his eyes blur a little as he’s adding another line to the blueprint. 

He sits up from his hunched position and checks the time on his phone. It’s 1:45 a.m.

“Shit,” he says, rubbing vigorously at his eyes. “I’ve got work in the morning. Anna Maria is gonna kill me if I’m late.”

“To bed with you,” Mr. Stark says, standing and giving Peter a hand up. “I’ll be up a while. Just wanna finish up with this thruster issue.”

“Sure,” Peter says, over a large yawn. “Thanks for your help.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” Mr. Stark says. 

And Peter wonders, briefly, _is it?_ It’s undeniable that having Mr. Stark here helped him work through the sticking point on the project. Maybe it’s a slightly disturbing way for his brain to process difficult problems?

But all thoughts along those lines stutter to a stop as Mr. Stark pulls him in by the wrist and places a kiss on his cheek, so close to his mouth that if Peter quirked his lips up, it would be nearly an actual kiss. Peter’s heart thumps heavy and slow, and he exists in the space between those beats.

“G’night, kid,” the other man whispers in his ear.

When Mr. Stark moves his hands to Peter’s shoulders, and pushes him gently in the direction of the bedroom, Peter goes without protest. He feels branded in every spot Mr. Stark had touched his skin over the course of the evening. He’s almost sure that if he looked into his bedroom mirror the marks would show as a dark, irritated red or perhaps a burnished gold – the corner of his mouth, the circle of his wrist, the knob of his ankle, the arch of his foot.

He doesn’t look, doesn’t want to shatter the fantasy. So instead he shucks himself out of his clothes and collapses into the mattress without even bothering to pull back the covers.

*

After that evening, Mr. Stark shows up more and more frequently. Sometimes it’s just as a blip, passing through rooms on his way to other things, acknowledging Peter with a wave, a short greeting, a smile. 

Sometimes he sticks around for longer. Sitting on the kitchen counter, tossing freeze-dried blueberries that Peter knows he didn’t buy into the air and catching them in his mouth while they talk over Peter’s day or the latest article in Scientific American.

Peter gives himself into it, forbids himself from examining it too far because he likes it too much. He doesn’t have the conversation that Dr. H intended for him to have, and when she asks he says: “Yes, we talked.” It isn’t a lie, but he should probably feel worse than he does about keeping things from his fucking therapist.

But what’s wrong with it, really? Peter knows the difference between what’s real and what isn’t. If he indulges himself, lets himself enjoys those moments, but he knows that it’s all in his head, that it’s the equivalent of a really detailed daydream, then it’s still harmless, isn’t it? Mostly?

It’s a little bit like having a roommate with an unorthodox work schedule. Mr. Stark shows up frequently while Peter is cooking dinner, moving subtly into Peter’s personal space, stealing bites of food when he thinks Peter isn’t looking. Without really thinking about it, Peter starts making enough for two. Even though that’s pointless. Because hallucinations cannot actually eat anything, Peter. But that’s one of many things that he _is not thinking about._

Once, when Peter has had a particularly shit day – Anna Maria is riding his ass, the board of directors is grumbling about stock prices, his latest experiment blows up in his face, literally – he stops by Burger King on his commute home and picks up cheeseburgers and fries. Look, he’s not proud of it, but but if you’re making a summoning circle for Tony Stark, you definitely need cheeseburgers. 

It works, is the thing. As soon as he tosses the greasy paper bag onto the kitchen counter, he sees Mr. Stark’s head pop out of the room that Peter uses as office space.

“Do I smell cheeseburgers?” he asks, approaching Peter cautiously. “You said I couldn’t have these, anymore. Rude words were bandied about – cholesterol, arteries, veggie burgers …”

He pulls an exaggerated disgusted face at the last word. 

“You know, I think we’re kind of past that point,” Peter says. “You should dig in.”

He doesn’t miss the flash of glee in Mr. Stark’s eyes as he reaches for the bag and unwraps one of the cheeseburgers.

The groan of pleasure he releases when he takes a bite thrums its way down Peter’s spine in an almost torturous way.

“What’s the occasion?” Mr. Stark asks, mouth half-full.

Peter shrugs, reaches into the bag for his own burger.

“Just a rough day,” he says. “Thought we could use an indulgence.”

He doesn’t say that his indulgence isn’t the greasy burger in his hands, but the opportunity to watch the man in front of him. He’s got the sleeves of his Henley rolled up to his elbows, which are braced on the counter. There’s a tiny smear of mustard at the corner of his mouth.

Peter’s eyes clock the pink flash of Mr. Stark’s tongue as he clears away the mustard, then he’s setting his food down and moving into Peter’s space. Two broad hands land on Peter’s shoulders, thumbs digging into the hollows of his collar bone, releasing a tension he didn’t realize he was holding onto. 

“You’ve been working too hard,” Mr. Stark says, moving his thumbs up and down the sides of Peter’s throat now. “How about a movie night? Indiana Jones. We’re up to Last Crusade, right?”

Peter just nods, unable to think of anything more perfect.

“Alright then. I’ll cue things up, you go slip into something more comfortable …”

He gives Peter a sly smile and a wink at that, which makes Peter laugh despite himself.

It’s the perfect anecdote for the day. Peter curls up on one end of the couch, and Mr. Stark sits on the middle cushion, arms stretched out on the back of the cushions across the length of the couch. Peter tries to pay attention to the movie, but he keeps sneaking looks at the other man, his features illuminated only by the light from the television screen.

By the time that Dr. Jones has made it to Venice, Mr. Stark’s fingers have somehow found their way into Peter’s hair. At first he just scratches lightly at his scalp, but then he brings his fingers together and tugs lightly at Peter’s curls. His stomach fills with that anti-gravity, roller-coaster feeling, and he can’t quite catch his breath. Mr. Stark repeats the motion, and Peter has to close his eyes, to have just that little buffer between himself and the things he’s feeling. 

With just the barest hint of pressure, Mr. Stark guides Peter’s head down until he’s stretched out, head resting on a warm, denim-clad thigh. As he continues to stroke Peter’s hair, the fluttering feeling settles, and Peter instead revels in the comfort of it. The movie plays on, but Peter’s eyes drift closed. He struggles for a few minutes against sleep, anxious not to let this moment fade. But in the end, he loses the fight and drifts off with a soft smile playing on his lips.

When he wakes up the next morning, he’s got a crease on his cheek from the couch cushion, a rivulet of drool on his chin, and he’s completely alone.

*

Mr. Stark sometimes shows up in unexpected locations: down in the otherwise abandoned basement laundry room, taking apart one of the broken-down dryers and complaining loudly about shoddy craftsmanship; up on the building rooftop when Peter comes in from a patrol, offering up a thermos of hot cocoa and telling Peter they should go up to the compound for the next meteor shower because you really can’t see shit in the sky with all the city lights.

One morning, Peter rolls out of bed to the abrasive beeping of his alarm and shuffles to the bathroom with his eyes squinted closed. He’s never been much of a morning person, and running his own company hasn’t changed that at all.

He brushes his teeth, applies deodorant, pisses and flushes all without ever properly opening his eyes. But as the water swirls in the toilet bowl, he’s shocked into full consciousness by an angry “Fuck!” from behind his shower curtain.

Peter startles and stumbles back, catches his heel on the bathroom rug, and only manages to prevent a full-on fall by sticking his fingers to either wall and his feet to the slick tiles of the floor. He’s caught in an awkward leaned-back Matrix pose when the shower curtain is ripped open, steam now pouring out from behind it.

“What the actual fuck, Pete?”

Peter’s eyes go wide. Mr. Stark is leaning out of his shower. He’s got one hand braced on the shower curtain rod, and Peter’s eyes rake down a wiry forearm, the muscled bicep to a broad chest where water clings to a thatch of dark hair. His gaze focuses, though, on the sunken place in the middle of Mr. Stark’s chest, skin thick with scar tissue. 

It’s the place where the arc reactor must have been before, where the nano reactor usually sits, only Mr. Stark isn’t wearing it now. He’s completely naked, right there in front of Peter, with the shower still running into the tub behind him. He feels heat creeping up his own chest and onto his cheeks. His throat is desert dry.

Mr. Stark snaps in the direction of Peter’s face a couple of times to get his attention, and Peter’s eyes drift back up his body to his face. 

“Are you trying to scald me?” he shouts. “You know the plumbing in this place is shit.”

“S-sorry?” Peter offers. 

Mr. Stark shoots a confused look at him.

“What, is it too early for you to give me lip or something?”

“Um …”

“Forget it,” Mr. Stark continues. “Go drink some coffee, kid. I’ll shout at you once you aren’t half asleep.”

Peter nods at him and then fails to keep his eyes from zeroing back on the scar tissue. It makes a corresponding part of his own chest ache. 

“Seriously, did Barnes hit you too hard during training or something?” Mr. Stark is asking. “Scoot, kid.”

“Right,” Peter says. He swiftly unsticks himself from the walls and scrambles to his feet.

“Sorry, sir,” he manages to mumble before he ducks his head and rushes out of the room, slamming the door behind him.

There are so, so many things wrong with him having the image of a naked Tony Stark just available for use in his brain. It’s got to be a combination of those videos he had guiltily looked up when he was 16 and his own demented imagination, but still.

He promises himself he’ll put it out of his mind from now on. It’s not right to think about a dead man that way. It makes the knot of ever-present guilt in his gut pulse uncomfortably. 

Still, being confronted with a naked Tony Stark is a relatively pleasant surprise. It’s decidedly less pleasant when Peter is just sitting at home one evening, playing Borderlands, when Mr. Stark throws open his front door and stomps into the living room still in full Iron Man armor. 

Peter’s up on his feet in an instant, fingers poised over the triggers on his web shooters, searching behind the other man’s back for threats. 

Mr. Stark lets the nanites that form his faceplate and helmet fade away. Beneath the armor, his hair is plastered to his skull with sweat and his left eye is red and swelling, halfway to being a black eye. A trickle of blood creeps down his temple.

His lips are a pale line where he’s pressing them together, clearly repressing the urge to say something. His eyes flash dark and angry at Peter. He could swear the man is vibrating with the effort of repressing an outburst. When he does speak, the words come out clipped and forceful.

“If you ever, ever pull a stunt like that again, I swear to fucking God I will reinstall the baby monitor protocol and have Karen put you on a leash so short you won’t even be able to take a piss,” He says, pointing on accusing, armored finger at Peter.

“What?” Peter interjects. “What are you …”

But Mr. Stark clearly doesn’t care what Peter has to say. He’s pacing up and down the length of the living room now.

“You do not get to just go off on your own when there’s some goddamn psycho in leopard print hunting you like you’re the most dangerous game or something.” 

“Are you talking about Kraven?” Peter asks, thinking of the weird big game hunter guy he’d put away a few years ago. “That guy is kind of a joke.”

“I don’t care if he’s a literal clown, Pete,” Mr. Stark says, waving his hands as though to physically whisk away Peter’s objections. He still hasn’t stopped pacing. “We are a team for a reason. You don’t get to make the sacrifice play. That’s not fair.”

The words flip a switch in Peter’s brain. He doesn’t care if he’s only actually having this argument with himself. He is filled with an incandescent rage.

“Do. Not. Even. Talk. To me. About sacrifice plays. You hypocrite.”

The words come out of him in a low hiss that he barely even recognizes as his own voice.

Mr. Stark pauses in his path across the floor, he spins on a heel to face Peter. 

“What did you say to me?”

“I said you’re a fucking hypocrite,” he replies, stepping up into Mr. Stark’s personal space so that they would be practically nose to nose if it weren’t for the extra height Mr. Stark gets from the suit. “There were at least 10 other people on the field who could have used that gauntlet. Including me. My blood is radioactive! But no. You’re Iron Man. You’ve gotta have the big hero moment, complete with the perfect last words.” 

“It always comes back to this, huh?” Mr. Stark says, eyes rolling up to the heavens as though imploring them for some kind of injunction.

“Did you think about the rest of us at all?” he asks, tone verging on hysterical. “About Pepper? About Morgan? A-about me?”

“That is all I thought about.”

Peter places one finger to the center of the nano reactor and deliberately presses until Mr. Stark has to take a fumbling step back. It’s a proof and an indictment all wrapped into one.

“Bullshit,” he says. “If you had, you would know. You would know I could never live with you making that kind of sacrifice for me. I would rather die a hundred times over.”

Mr. Stark flinches back from that like it’s a physical blow. Peter doesn’t care. He can’t even stand to look at the man right now. He walks past Mr. Stark, crossing to the door in three long strides.

Peter pauses with his hand on the door knob. He turns his head back halfway so his voice can be heard, but he doesn’t dare look at Mr. Stark right now. He doesn’t know what he’ll do.

“You did it for yourself,” he says, lowly. “You did for the glory of it. You’re a bastard.”

Then he throws the door open and practically launches himself down the stairs. He’s four blocks away before he realizes he’s left his apartment without closing or locking the door, and without even thinking of picking up his wallet. He decides he doesn’t care. He walks on.

It takes another six blocks for him to begin regretting what he’s done. The panic sets in, insidious and slow. What if he made Mr. Stark angry? _No, Peter, stop_. Hallucinations don’t get angry. But what if that was it? That was the big conversation Dr. H asked him to have? What if telling Tony Stark that he’s a bastard was the last thing that Peter needed to do and he never gets to see him again?

His breath comes unsteady, and he pretends to himself that it’s because he’s running down the street. He can’t go back to his own apartment for fear that he’ll find it empty. Instead, after about half an hour of running, he finds himself at Wade Wilson’s door, pounding on it like there really is a demented big game hunter after him.

Wade opens the door to Peter wearing crocs, sweats, and a Hello Kitty t-shirt.

“Baby Boy!” he shouts, joyously, before noting the expression on Peter’s face and his state of disarray. 

He doesn’t say anything when he does notice. He just ushers him into the apartment, offers him some cold pizza, and sits him down on the couch before switching on Mario Kart and proceeding to beat Peter’s despondent ass in race after race.

With eyes focused on the television screen, Peter tells Wade the whole saga, beginning to end. 

“Do you think it’s crazy?” he asks while he watches himself fall behind the pack on Rainbow Road. “To want to keep them? I shouldn’t want to keep them, right?” 

“I don’t know, Petey,” Wade says. “I think I might be the wrong one to ask. I’m used to living with things that technically aren’t there, what with the voices and everything. If someone told me I got the opportunity to see Ness every day, but I have to know that technically it isn’t real? I’d jump at it. But I ain’t exactly a mental health icon.”

“I don’t know what I’ll do if he’s gone for good,” Peter says, softly. He throws his controller down onto the cushion of the leather couch as Wade crosses the finish line.

Wade reaches back to hook one hand around Peter’s calf from his position on the floor. He tilts his head back to look at Peter.

“You’ll call me,” he says. “No matter what happens, Petey, you got people in your corner.”

Peter is unaccountably fond of that scarred, upside-down face.

“Thanks, Wade.”

When he wanders home, well past 2 in the morning, he pauses for a long moment outside his door (one of the neighbors must have closed it for him) and leans his head against the fiber board, trying to prepare himself for whatever awaits inside. 

The apartment is dark when he walks in except for a warm light hanging over the kitchen counter. When his eyes find Mr. Stark beneath that light, heavy-framed smart glasses on his face, moving his hands like he’s conducting an orchestra, he lets out a breath he didn’t realize he was holding.

Only now he’s not sure what to do. He steps slowly into the tight circle of light, shuffling his feet until Mr. Stark looks up at him, jaw clenched. The second he does, Peter feels the tears prick at his eyes. 

“I’m so sorry,” he croaks. “I didn’t mean anything I said.” 

Mr. Stark’s face loses all of its tension.

“Christ, Pete, neither did I,” he says. “You just had me so scared.” 

Peter flings himself at the man, wrapping his arms all the way around Mr. Stark’s middle and clinging. More slowly, Mr. Stark’s arms come up to wrap around Peter. They stand there for a long beat, Peter’s head tucked into the side of Mr. Stark’s neck, Mr. Stark’s nose in Peter’s hair. Their breathing syncs.

“I thought you’d be gone,” Peter says, lips brushing against the soft skin of Mr. Stark’s neck, tasting salt and something musky and deep that’s unique to the man in his arms.

Mr. Stark sighs and brings a hand up to Peter’s hair.

“Sorry to say, you’re stuck with me now, kid,” he says with a chuckle. “I’m like gum on your shoe. Can’t shake me.”

“Good,” Peter says with a sigh of relief. “That’s good.”

*

It takes Peter probably too long to realize the specific trap his mind has been laying for him. In all fairness, it’s not at all an obvious place to end up, and Peter’s been keeping this particular idea locked away in a very dark corner of his mind.

It doesn’t all click together until Peter’s in bed one night, struggling to actually fall asleep, and a heavy weight makes the mattress dip. The first thing he thinks is that Wade must be having another dark spell and needs to talk things through. 

But then a warm, unscarred hand is settling itself in the middle of Peter’s chest, and his body is pulled backward against the warm curve of someone else. He recognizes the hard lines of the nano reactor against his shoulder blades and the calluses on the palm between his pecs. Peter’s body tenses.

“M-Mr. Stark?” he sputters.

The voice that replies is rough with exhaustion, and just a little slurred from impending sleep. It sounds almost exactly the way Peter imagined it would in those fantasies he isn’t allowed to examine or dwell on.

“Hmm, we haven’t played that game in a while,” Mr. Stark says. “But can we save it for tomorrow, baby? Daddy’s going on 50 hours without sleep.”

“Daddy?” Peter mouths to himself, incredulously. He thinks his brain may have just exploded. 

“I know I’ve been neglecting you, baby” Mr. Stark continues. “I’ll make it up to you. I promise. Jus’ need a little nap first …”

“I-It’s ok,” Peter whispers. “You should sleep, sir.”

He feels Mr. Stark’s smile spread across the skin on the nape of his neck, followed by a ghost of a kiss. Then he’s being pulled in even further so there’s practically no space between their bodies, Mr. Stark’s nose buried in Peter’s hair, his breaths gusting deep and slow against the back of his neck. 

It’s cruel, Peter thinks. It’s like digging a thumb into his own bruised flesh, to know what this feels like, and to also know it’s all a lie. He doesn’t want to live with the sense memory of Tony Stark’s soft snores vibrating through his own body. And yet, he feels compelled to record every inhalation and exhalation.

It makes sense, in a fucked-up way. Of course, if Peter was conjuring up a perfect, renewed version of Mr. Stark, that version would also want Peter back. He’s fixing all the things he didn’t like about the man. He shows up, he sticks around, he apologizes, he wants Peter Parker. It just emphasizes the unreality of the situation. A real Tony Stark wouldn’t do any of those things. But that terrible knowledge doesn’t stop Peter from sinking into the embrace, from holding himself on the edge of sleep so he can make note of everything – the way Tony’s body twitches when he dreams, the way his fingers clutch and release Peter’s skin, the way he mutters half-coherent equations even in the depths of REM, brain always slightly restless.

Peter only knows that he falls asleep himself because, between an extended period of closing and opening his eyes, the warmth and weight of Tony’s body is gone.

The sun is just barely rising, but Peter pulls himself out of his cold bed and gets ready for work. He manages to accomplish exactly nothing the whole day. Instead he focuses on the thing Tony had said before he fell asleep last night. _I’ve been neglecting you, baby. I’ll make it up to you._

Peter can’t. He can’t possibly. It would be wrong on so very many levels. It would be a desecration of a great man’s memory. It would be very, very bad for Peter’s own mental health.

But would it really be any different from the fantasies Peter’s already indulged in? _Yes,_ the darkest part of Peter’s mind whispers. _It would be better._

He’s a bundle of nerves and agitation by the time he gets home that evening. He’s going to put on his suit, and go on patrol, and release some of this manic energy that’s thrumming through his veins. 

Instead, he stops stock still in the middle of the living room to watch Tony pulling apart a drone on his coffee table. He’s wearing a black tank top, engine grease smeared on his forearms, a tiny streak on his forehead where he must have scratched. 

“I know, I know,” Tony says, holding up a hand to stay Peter. “No engineering in the living spaces. But this little guy crash landed this morning. I couldn’t just abandon him without a proper examination, could I?”

There’s a pool of some kind of coolant dripping off the coffee table and onto the rug beneath. Peter doesn’t care. He watches Tony’s dexterous fingers prod at the little drone’s wiring, and the whole scene sets the ember in his gut to flame.

He kneels beside the couch where Tony sits, shuffles into the space between his legs and looks up into his face. He sees a tiny wrinkle of confusion at being cut off from his work forming between Tony’s eyebrow. But he doesn’t see any hint of rejection or hesitation.

Peter hooks a hand into the collar of Tony’s shirt and pulls him down.

He’s too quick, too harsh at first. Their teeth clack together painfully, and he nips too hard at Tony’s lower lip. But then two firm hands are smoothing over Peter’s shoulders, settling him. The kiss turns slow, teasing. Tony’s tongue flicks at the seam of his lips before sinking into Peter’s mouth.

Peter groans at the rightness of it, scrambling up onto the couch, his knees on either side of Tony’s legs, pressing as close as he can. 

“Need you,” he gasps between kisses. “God, so long …”

Tony’s hands are running down his spine now, tugging Peter’s shirt out of his pants so they can reach the bare skin of his back. The touch simultaneously soothes and excites.

“You’re fine, kid,” Tony says, teeth worrying a spot on Peter’s jaw. “I’ve got you.”

Peter would be embarrassed about the choked off noise he makes at those words, were he capable of embarrassment at this point.

“Bed now,” Tony says.

He swats affectionately at Peter’s ass when he whines his protest at the thought of moving from their current positions, then forces him up and practically drags Peter back to the bedroom.

Clothes are removed in a flurry, and soon Peter is being pressed back into the mattress and arching up as Tony’s eyes examine him. They’re crinkled with an affection and warmth that Peter can barely stand.

“You are a damn work of art, Pete,” he whispers, fingers running lightly down the line of Peter’s throat. “Someone should sculpt you.”

Then his fingers flutter down to Peter’s hips, bracing them firmly as he leans down to take Peter’s length in his mouth. The wet heat of it is almost so overwhelming that he barely notices when a slick finger prods at his entrance. He manages to relax his muscles and bear down.

The intrusion gives him enough of his consciousness back to wonder how this must look from the outside – Peter alone on his bed. Is he fingering himself open, or just conjuring all these sensations up in his brain? It’s impossible for him to tell, and his mind skitters away from the thought. It doesn’t matter. The illusion is what matters. 

It’s far too soon when Peter prods at Tony’s calves with the heels of his feet. 

“Enough,” he says. “Need you.”

Tony raises his head from his ministrations and cracks his jaw.

“You sure?” he asks, hoarsely.

“Please,” Peter begs.

Tony slides up his body, bracing his forearms on either side of Peter’s head.

“Well, when you ask so nice,” he says, with a lopsided grin and a dark flash of eyes.

Then he kisses Peter and thrusts into him at the same time. The preparation he got wasn’t nearly enough, which is exactly what Peter wanted. He wants it to ache. He wants it to burn. He wants to feel it for days, wants it to feel like it’s real.

It’s that idea, far more than the friction of their bodies rubbing together, or Tony’s artfully timed thrusts, that send pleasure thundering through Peter’s body, lighting striking at the core of him, making him arch his back and moan.

It’s only a few more thrusts before Tony’s body is echoing Peter’s own, clutching Peter to him and letting the tautness of his muscles relax. With a grunt of effort, he rolls them both onto their sides, and gathers Peter up into his arms so that his face is pressed into Tony’s chest, chin just resting on the rim of the reactor.

“Holy. Shit.” Tony says between huffs of breath. “I don’t think it’s ever been like that before.” 

“No,” Peter confirms, mouthing a kiss onto Tony’s chest. “No, it hasn’t.”

They cling together for long minutes while Peter feels the endorphins slowly leach out of his body. What he’s left with, when they go, is a resigned and overwhelming sadness. He feels a tear creep down his cheek.

Tony must feel it too, because he pulls back to look down at Peter’s face, his thumb coming up to wipe a tear away from the corner of his eye.

“What’s wrong, kid?” he asks. “Did I hurt you?”

“No,” Peter shakes his head. “No, never.”

He turns his head to place a kiss on the palm that’s cupping his cheek. He looks up into Tony’s eyes, nearly black in the dim light from the streetlamps outside the bedroom window. He takes a bracing breath, and then lets out the words he’s been holding onto for so long.

“I’m sorry,” Peter says. “I’m just so sorry.” 

That furrow of concern is back on Tony’s face.

“Sorry for what, Pete?” he asks.

“I’m sorry you ever felt like you had to sacrifice yourself for me,” he says. His voice is just above a whisper, small as possible. “That never should have been your job. I should have been able to take care of myself. You had so much to live for, this whole life, and you left it behind because you thought you had to bring me back. But you should have left me there, wherever the infinity stones took me. The world would have been better.”

“Hey, where’s this coming from?” Tony says. “That was years ago, and it all worked out, didn’t it?”

Peter ignores that, has to push forward. 

“I just need you to know that I would give anything to bring you back. I wish it were me.”

His throat aches with the pressure of the sob he’s been holding in to get through this.

“It should have been me,” he says, releasing it, and burying his face in Tony’s chest. “P-please, please say you’ll forgive me.”

“Pete,” Tony says, pulling back from his clutch and lifting his chin up with an index finger. “Peter, listen to me now. Listen.”

With effort, Peter reigns back the tears, choking on them messily, but managing. He can’t meet Tony’s eyes, focusing instead on his lips, watching the words come. 

“There is nothing to forgive,” Tony says, pressing a finger to Peter’s mouth as he opens it to protest. “I would have made the same choices a thousand times over if it meant bringing you back into the world. _I_ would have given anything. Just like you would have. I love you, kid. Don’t ask me to regret anything about that, because I can’t.”

Peter takes the words like the benediction they are, let’s them settle over him and sink into his bones. When he kisses Tony, it tastes salty with his own tears.

“I love you,” he whispers directly into the other man’s mouth between kisses. “I love you, I love you.” 

“I was sort of hoping,” Tony says with a smirk that Peter feels more than sees. 

Peter presses their foreheads together and closes his eyes, feels for the moment that Tony slips into sleep. 

He feels hollowed out. Peter knows, with a deep and horrible certainty, that this is the last night they will get together. What more could he possibly say, after all, to make his peace? If this is all he gets, he thinks, it’s so much more than he ever hoped for. And it will have to be enough.

He holds on as tight as he can for as long as he can, but even still, when he wakes the next morning his arms are empty.


	2. Chapter 2

The morning dawns rainy and grey, and that satisfies Peter in some instinctual way. It’s like Mother Nature validating his decision to never, ever remove himself from his bed. 

It feels like the morning after he died again, like he’s ripped open a very old wound. He can practically feel it oozing. The vastness of what Peter feels is like extreme cold. At a certain point, it just becomes too much, and the mind reacts with numbness. 

His body aches in what might be a good way, if it weren’t for the specifics of his circumstances. He grabs both the edges of his duvet and makes himself into a human burrito. He calls Anna Maria from inside his fluffy burrito cave.

“This better be good, Peter,” she says, picking up on the first ring.

“You know, technically I am your boss,” he grumbles. “You might be a little nicer to me.”

“I could, but please remember that it is 7 a.m. You call before my second Red Bull, you suffer the consequences.” 

“Listen, I’m not gonna make it in today.”

“No, Peter. No. Also, why?”

“I’m sick,” Peter says, not having to reach very far to sound pathetic.

“You’re Spider-Man. You’re not sick. Also, you’re coming to work.”

“I got hit by a bus,” Peter tries. 

“You didn’t because I would have seen that on the news. Go for three.”

“Look, Anna Maria, I am currently recovering from a bit of a mental health crisis, ok? I need you to handle things today.”

“Damn, that I actually believe,” she says. “Peter, we’ve got that acquisition meeting today. I really need you to be there.”

Peter momentarily buries his face in his pillows. No. Just, no. Today he is going to drink enough to truly test his liver’s super healing ability and mourn. He cannot fathom of more interaction with the world than this single, snarky phone call. And even it feels a little much.

“Reschedule it,” he mumbles. “It’s a good negotiation tactic anyway.” 

“We want them more than they want us!”

“Then have Brant go and handle things.”

“You said if I was good this month I could fire Brant.”

“Then fire him!” Peter shouts. “Fire everyone. I don’t care.”

Anna Maria pauses for a long beat. 

“Are you sure you’re ok, Peter?” she asks cautiously.

“I’m really fucking not,” he says.

Then he hangs up the phone, nestles deep down into his blanket tortilla, and drifts into another uneasy sleep. 

The next time he wakes up, it’s to a thin haze of smoke and the smell of something burning. There’s the instinctual panic that hits at the threat of fire, but another, more despondent part of Peter’s brain thinks _of course._ Of course his apartment is going to burn down, on top of everything else.

He decides the sprinkler heads the landlord installed are probably fake, which means he does actually have to move, and then struggles out of the blankets. Peter follows the smell of smoke out to the kitchen, where he finds the source of the smoke.

There’s a pan of what once might have been bacon on the hob. It is now charcoal, and also on fire. Peter feels like he’s looking at the world through a fish-eye lens. Nothing is really computing. 

There’s a bang from one of the lower cabinets and an exclamation of “Shit, fuck, ow!”

Then Tony Stark pops up like a jack-in-the-box from behind the counter, rubbing the top of his head and grimacing.

“Do we seriously not have a fire extinguisher in this apartment?” he implores Peter. “That seems like a really bad idea considering the me of it all.”

“It’s … It’s in the cabinet by the microwave,” Peter says, faintly.

He tips his head slowly to the side, the baroo of a confused puppy, and watches from that angle as Tony triumphantly finds the fire extinguisher and sends a spray of fluffy sodium bicarbonate onto the pan to smother the flames. 

He smiles and holds his hands out to the resultant mess of grease and chemicals, as though he’s presenting an exciting new invention. But his face falls when Peter doesn’t immediately respond.

“Ok,” Tony says, holding his hands out consolingly. “Ok, yes, I realize this did not exactly go to plan. But I was actually trying to be nice, and I feel I should get some credit for that.”

Peter manages to make some kind of noise in response.

“Whu-ump,” he says.

That’s not a word. When did words become so hard?

“I agree, it is a shame to waste good bacon,” Tony says. “That’s on me. But to make it up to you, I’ll order something in, anything you want. Even if it’s that weird congee stuff from that place in Chinatown. And I will eat it without complaining about it being the texture of mucus. Much.”

“That’s a lie,” Peter snarks, bringing a hand up to cover his mouth almost immediately after the words have escaped.

He can’t help it. When the man starts talking, he just gets carried along with him, no matter what else is happening in the moment. He’s like a current. A force of fucking nature.

“It is a lie,” Tony admits, wide smile creeping up his face and making his eyes crinkle. “I’m gonna whine about it like a baby. But you’re used to that by now.” 

God, Peter loves the little crow's feet at the corners of his eyes. And the barely-there scar on his chin just at the edge of his goatee, and the way his mouth always tilts down just a little bit right before he smiles. 

“You, uh, still with me here, Pete?” 

Oh. He’s been quiet too long. Caught staring again. Well, in all fairness, he didn’t think he was ever going to see that face again. Staring is the most sensible thing to do.

“I do want congee for breakfast,” Peter says. “And egg dumplings.”

“Done,” Tony says.

“I’ll order,” Peter says. “You clean up the disaster area.”

“Kinda feel like I’m getting the raw end of that deal.”

“You set fire to my kitchen,” Peter points out. “There were flames.” 

“So there were,” Tony says, contritely.

Peter steps forward and wraps his arms around the man’s neck. He kisses the corners of his eyelids, the tips of his nose, the curve of his jaw, before bringing their lips together. As their tongues tangle, he feels tears prick sharp in his eyes, but he won’t let them out. There will be other days, perhaps very soon, for crying. _I’m going to keep you,_ he thinks, _for just as long as I possibly can._

“Something’s wrong,” Tony says, when they break apart. “Something you aren’t telling me.”

He runs a hand through Peter’s sleep-rumpled hair, and Peter leans into the motion like a cat.

“Nothing you need to worry about,” Peter says, fighting to keep his tone level and light.

“I like to help, you know. Makes me feel useful in my dotage.” 

Peter chuckles at that.

“You do help,” he says. “You make everything better.”

*

Peter doesn’t really understand how he could have gotten everything so wrong. But for once, he’s glad to have missed the mark. 

Tony’s visits seem to last for longer now, and happen more frequently. That first day, _after_ , they get the whole day. After breakfast, Peter lays Tony out on the couch and runs his tongue over every inch of his skin, lingering on each curve and divot until he has the taste of him properly memorized.

Afterward, there’s hardly a day that Peter comes home from work when he isn’t somewhere in the apartment. Tony seems to adjust quickly to Peter greeting him by launching himself bodily into his arms.

“You’re a little heavy, you know, Pete,” he says, fondly, the first time. 

“You’re not to supposed to say that,” Peter informs him, legs wrapping tight around Tony’s torso and nipping at his collar bone. “You’re … Supposed to say how I hardly weigh anything.”

“You’re 26, and I think that spider gave you super dense muscles because you, my darling, are a lump.”

“Rude,” Peter says, putting just a little more teeth than necessary into his caress in retaliation.

“It’s just good that I’ve added weights to my training regimen,” Tony says.

But he doesn’t try to put Peter down. Instead he lugs him into the bedroom and tosses him onto the mattress with a bounce, following swiftly behind.

At work, Anna Maria notices a marked difference in his demeanor.

“What’s that face you’re making?” she asks Peter one day when she barges into his office to argue about the projects making it through to the next phase of funding this quarter. It’s an important part of their process.

Peter turns in his chair from where he’s been staring out the window and daydreaming for at least a quarter of an hour.

“I’m not making a face,” he says. 

“You are,” she assures him. “It’s kind of disturbing, actually. Stop it.”

Peter raises his fingers self-consciously to his lips. Soft, upturned. _Besotted,_ he thinks. _Jesus._

“Don’t panic, but I think it might actually be a smile,” he says. 

“Ew,” Anna Maria says. “Then definitely stop it.”

The hitch comes a couple weeks later when Pepper calls to make arrangements for Morgan’s visit. It’s Peter’s weekend with her. He usually takes her for a weekend each month – more often in the summer – because Pepper thinks its good for her to have good male role models around. Maybe, working together, Peter, Happy and Rhodey are covering the necessary bases. Peter hopes so, at least.

He usually looks forward to those visits. He’s put himself in charge of Morgan’s pop culture and scientific education, and their days together are usually filled with old movies, junk food that her mother refuses to let her have, and the occasional explosive experiment. 

Their last couple weekends together she had been mostly interested in quizzing Peter on boyfriends. She’s 14 now, and there’s a boy in her class that she has her eye on. She’d wanted to hear all about his own first crushes. He’d reluctantly told her about Flash (Ok, yes, he has a thing for dark-haired assholes), Liz and MJ.

But this time, when he and Pepper are discussing what time Peter needs to be at Morgan’s school to pick her up on Friday, Peter gets a twinge of anxiety. What happens, exactly, if Tony shows up? Obviously he’ll have to ignore him. He doesn’t want Morgan to think he’s gone completely round the bend. But he knows it’s going to be a challenge. He’s so used to treating his hallucinations like they’re real, without even an ounce of incredulity.

Still, he can’t imagine putting Morgan off until next month. So he’s there at the gates of her fancy private school promptly at 3:30. He’s in time to hear the final bell ring and see the kids rush down the stairs in a stampede, throwing off their grey school jackets and yelling back and forth.

Peter spots Morgan by the giant red headphones over her ears. They’ve become a bit of a signature for her over the past year as she explores her dad’s classic rock collection with guidance from Friday. Pepper’s concerned that they’re becoming a crutch for her already existing loner tendencies, but Peter remembers vividly the need to shut the world out at that age just to be able to hear the thoughts in your own head and know they’re your own. He’s not worried. 

His heart gives a little twinge when he sees the smile that spreads across her face when she spots him, and her steps get a little quicker. When she gets to the gate, he greets her with a double high five, and she slips the headphones down to rest around her neck.

“Hey kiddo,” he says. “How was school?”

“Ugh,” Morgan says with an eerily familiar roll of her eyes. “So boring. Hey, can you sign an office note for me?” 

“Again?” Peter asks as they amble down the sidewalk. “Morgan. What happened this time? Also, no, you know that has to be your Mom.”

“Whyyy,” Morgan whines. “I didn’t even do anything bad. You could argue I did something good. I corrected Mr. Eames in class when he was talking about transition state theory. I was just making sure the class had accurate information.”

“Mmhm, and I bet you said it with absolutely no attitude.”

“You’re one to talk, Spider-Man.”

“But I was never Spider-Man during school.”

Morgan shoots him a look of disbelief.

“Alright,” Peter amends, choosing his words more carefully. “I was never Spider-Man in the middle of class.”

“That’s because you’re a nerd.” 

“You’re in honors chemistry and bio.” 

“And yet,” she says. “I lack the natural … what’s the opposite of Je Ne Sais Quoi? … To be a real nerd.”

“And I think you’re awfully high and mighty for someone with half the Foundation series in her backpack.”

“Which you recommended.”

“Which you love,” Peter says, knocking his elbow against her shoulder. Morgan hasn’t developed her mom’s height yet. “C’mon. Give me this one.”

“Fine,” she says with an exaggerated groan. “I like it, ok.” 

Peter nods his acceptance of this boon. 

“So what’s on the agenda this weekend?” she asks. 

“Oh, you’re gonna love it,” he says, excitedly. “The theme of this weekend is … Robots!”

Peter pans a hand across the horizon to emphasize his last word. He’d been inspired by watching Tony rewire the little drone that still hasn’t been moved off of Peter’s coffee table. He knows it’s something that Morgan will take to immediately. 

“Robots?” Morgan asks skeptically.

“Yes. So, movie marathon and takeout tonight, your choice. I’m thinking Wall-E, Iron Giant, Short Circuit …’ 

“Ooh. Can we watch Terminator?” she asks. “I’ve heard good things.”

Peter weighs briefly how much trouble he’ll get in for not keeping all his selections PG against how much Morgan is going to love the movie and makes the call. 

“Yes,” he says. “If you do not tell your mother.” 

“Agreed.” 

“Alright. So, then, tomorrow we build battle bots, test them out in a street fight, see who reigns victorious.” 

Peter doesn’t miss how Morgan perks up a little at that. She does love a little competition. 

“Yeah,” she agrees. “That might be cool.”

“See?” Peter says. “I can be cool. You wanna stop by the record store on the way home?”

Morgan lets out a little squee of excitement, and takes off down the street ahead of him, running in the direction of the storefront.

When they get back to the apartment, Peter’s got a heavy brown paper bag full of discount vinyl under one arm, and he’s listening to Morgan rhapsodize about the perfection of the Back in Black album. He leaves the records propped by the door, and pulls a handful of worn takeout menus from a drawer.

They get fanned out on the coffee table for Morgan to look over.

“So, what are we thinking?” Peter says, sorting through the menus. “We could do Thai. You like larb, right? Or we could try this new Japanese place that opened down the street. They’ve got, like, a million flavors of mochi.”

“What’s that thing we had before?” Morgan asks. “With the weird sauce.”

“Um, you’re gonna have to be more specific than that, kiddo.”

They’re debating between Thai and Indian curry when Peter’s shoulders go rigid at the creak of a door hinge. He watches Tony saunter out of the office and into the kitchen to start rooting around in cabinets for a snack. He clocks them on the couch. 

“Hey babydoll,” he calls. “I didn’t realize it was your weekend with us.”

Peter schools his face. He will not react. It’s just a normal afternoon. He turns his attention back to Morgan with a wide, fake smile plastered on his face. 

“We can always ask them to tone down the heat,” he’s saying before he notices that Morgan actually isn’t looking so good.

Her eyes have gone wide, and her hand is just stopped mid-gesture, because she always speaks with her hands. _Shit. Act normal, Peter._

“Or, you know, we could leave it alone?”

“Hey, you wanna come look at a drone I dragged home?” Tony asks, holding the bag of dried snap peas he’s found up in triumph. “He’s real cute, but Pete says we can’t adopt him.”

_Shut up_ , Peter wants to scream. It shouldn’t be this hard to just ignore the situation.

“Morgan?” he prompts, because her face really has gone pale. “We can do pizza if you aren’t up for anything too spicy. Are you feeling ok?”

Morgan presses one hand to Peter’s mouth, her fingers trembling against his lips, and slowly turns her head.

There’s a long silence when Peter’s spidey senses focus completely on Morgan’s quick, shaky breaths. 

“Daddy?” 

Her voice comes out wet, cracks at the end. Her hand shifts down from Peter’s mouth to clutch his fingers in a vice-tight grip. She shoots to her feet and spins so that she’s fully facing the spot where Tony’s standing. 

“Morgan?” he says, taking a few tentative steps toward her. “What’s wrong, babydoll?” 

Blindly, Peter clutches Morgan to his chest, her back against his ribcage where he can feel her breaths coming faster and faster. It’s for her support, but also his own because _what in the ever-loving fuck is happening right now?_

“Can you see him too?” she asks, clutching at the protective arm Peter’s thrown across her collar bone. “Please, Peter, can you see him too?”

“Yes,” Peter says, hoarsely. “Yes. And you …”

“What the hell …”

“Ok,” Tony says decisively, stomping into the living room. “What is up with the two of you? Somebody better start talking right now.”

Reflexively, Morgan flinches back from him, stepping on Peter’s feet. Tony stills at her reaction. His mouth is a thin, pale line, his eyebrows creeping together. _And Morgan can see him too._

“I’m not crazy,” Peter whispers to himself, mind a tangle. “I’m not crazy.”

Tony’s completely focused on Morgan. He crouches down, rocking forward onto the balls of his feet. 

“Morgan, honey, can you tell me what’s wrong? I can’t fix it unless you talk to me.”

They seem to stare at each other for a drawn-out moment, and then Peter watches as Morgan’s face crumples in on itself. she jerks free of his grasp, flinging her arms around Tony’s neck and sobbing against his t-shirt.

“You died,” she’s saying. “You died. I missed you so much.”

“It was a dream, honey,” he says, rubbing her back. “You must’ve had a dream. I just saw you Tuesday. I’m fine. We’re all just fine.”

“How could you not tell me he was here?” she wails, turning her head in Peter’s direction, but still clinging desperately to her father.

“I …” Peter has no idea what to say. Not a single clue. “I … I thought I made him up inside my head.”

“I’m sorry, what now?” Tony gently untangles Morgan’s arms from his neck so he can stand. 

“Mr. Stark …” Peter begins.

“Ok, seriously, Pete, it is fine in the bedroom …”

“Ew,” Morgan exclaims. “Oh my god, you mean you two are …”

“But it is just weird when we’re with other people.”

“It’s bad enough that I can’t get Mom and Rhodey to soundproof their room …”

“Especially since we are both Mr. Stark now.”

“You got married without me?” Morgan cries.

There’s no reason that this, after all the things that have happened in just the past ten minutes, should make Peter feel like he’s been flipped on his head, but it does. His eyes flick down to Tony’s left hand to find a silver band on his ring finger. Didn’t that used to be gold? Peter honestly can’t be sure. There’s definitely nothing on his own finger. And also, yeah, Tony Stark is dead. Or was, until extremely recently. He’s still figuring it out.

“We most certainly are not married,” Peter says, voice coming out far too loud and angry.

He can’t help it. It’s the cruelest thing his mind has done yet. It was one thing to think he could have Tony. In a way. For a little while. It’s another thing entirely to think he could keep him.

“Oh, we sure as hell are, sweetheart,” Tony bites back. “You made me promises. Honor and obey.”

“Well, now I know you’re full of shit,” Peter snaps at him. He doesn’t miss the wicked smile Tony gives him as he does. “Besides, if we’re married, then why don’t I have a ring?” 

He wiggles his naked left ring finger at Tony in a way that feels like a lewd gesture.

“Oh, I don’t know, kid, maybe because after you lost lucky number 9 at the bottom of the ocean doing a favor for our old pal Namor, we both decided there were better things to spend our money on than a replacement every six months.”

“You know Namor?” Peter asks, ridiculously. This entire conversation is ridiculous, and he might be a little hysterical.

“If you had invited me, I could have been your maid of honor,” Morgan says, tugging at the hem of Peter’s shirt to catch his attention.

“I’m sure you would have looked beautiful at our imaginary wedding,” he says.

“Honestly, it’s a hundred times worse than it was with the backpacks you kept losing in every corner of the city,” Tony is muttering to himself. “Backpacks and wedding rings. I should be insulted. You never lost the suit I built you.”

“Ok,” Peter says, trying to get a handle on the conversation. “Ok. Look, Tony, there are things we need to discuss.”

“If this is your strange way of trying to break up with me, kid, I gotta tell you, you’re gonna have to try a lot harder than that.” 

Peter lets out an agitated groan and tugs at his own hair in frustration. He takes a few deep breaths to clear his mind out.

“What do you remember,” he asks. “About the end of the battle with Thanos?” 

“That was 10 years ago.” 

“Indulge me.” 

“I mean, what do you want me to say here, Pete? Stole the Infinity Stones, snapped his ass into dust, got the last word.”

“Right,” Peter says. “Ok, yes. But what about after that. It hurt, yeah?” 

“Yeah,” Tony agrees, rubbing at his shoulder as though the burns are still there. “It hurt. I was in the hospital for weeks, and in physical therapy for almost a year after. You were by my side the whole time.”

And Peter wishes for that version of things to be true. Wants it so badly that it burns in his veins.

“Well, that’s not exactly how it happened from our perspective.” 

“Our?” Tony asks, making quotation marks with his fingers around the word. “What does that mean?”

Peter takes a big breath and looks Tony directly in the eye.

“I don’t know what it was like for you, but for everyone else? You died.”

He doesn’t look down, but Peter feels Morgan curl into his side and hide her face in his shirt. Tony’s face twists in pain for just a flash, and then he’s back to smiling a big, fake smile. 

“I think you might have hit your head or something, kid. We need to take you to see Banner?”

“Tony,” Peter says more forcefully now. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. But it’s true. Using the stones was too much for a human body to handle. You died. And then about three weeks ago you showed up here, in my apartment, acting like you’d been here the whole time.”

“And you just did nothing when a dead man showed up in your home?”

“Not nothing,” Peter says, cringing in anticipation of the next bit. “I went to see my therapist. I thought you were a hallucination.”

“That was your first thought?”

“Well, it’s not exactly the first time it’s happened,” Peter says, his face heating. “I used to see you a lot. I figured you were there to remind me … Remind me it was my fault.”

He sinks down onto the couch with Morgan still curled against him. The side of his shirt is wet where she’s been pressing her face. He places his elbows on his knees and scrubs his face with his hands. 

“Fuck,” he whispers.

“Fuck,” Morgan echoes, a little punched out sound. 

“Hey,” Tony says to her. “Language.”

She chokes on a laugh and wipes her runny nose with her sleeve.

“I’m 14, Daddy.”

“I know how old you are,” he says.

Tony settles beside them on the couch, wrapping an arm around Morgan and letting his hand brace, warm and comforting, against Peter’s back. He relaxes into the touch.

“So you got my going away present, then?” 

“You mean EDITH?” Peter says with a bitter chuckle. “Yeah, asshole, I got her. Really terrible call giving control of a security satellite to a 16-year-old, by the way. I almost killed one of my classmates with a drone strike the first time I put them on.”

“You seem to have done alright for yourself.” 

The hand creeps up his back and into his hair, rubbing soft circles in that now familiar way.

“Would’ve done better with you there,” he says to his knees. He feels 16 again, and helpless, and just so desperate for Mr. Stark’s attention.

“There is literally only one thing that could’ve stopped me, kid.” 

The three of them sit quiet and wrung out, leaning against each other, for what feels like a long, long time.

“I really think we need to call somebody about all this,” Peter says at last.

“What, like ghostbusters?” Morgan asks, her voice a little panicked around the edges. 

“You saw ghostbusters without me?” Tony looks down a her, teasing, to lighten the mood.

Peter realizes that he’s never actually gotten to see him be a dad. He thinks he might be really good at it.

“Peter and I watched them all,” Morgan confirms.

“Who’s your favorite ghostbuster, then?”

Morgan rolls her eyes at him.

“Holtzmann,” she says. “Duh.”

“Alright,” Tony says with a nod. “Solid choice. I mean, she’s no Egon, but still. I can respect that.”

“Not ghostbusters,” Peter says, running a hand over Morgan’s head before turning his eyes to Tony. “I was thinking more Dr. Strange?”

“Ugh,” Tony groans. “Do we have to?”

*

It’s less than half an hour later before they’re all piling out of a taxi in front of the brownstone with its weird fish-eye window where Dr. Strange lives. Peter gives the driver a big tip for getting them there quick. 

It’s twilight, and the light from the house pours out golden onto the sidewalk. Tony and Morgan both loiter on the stoop, so it’s Peter that has to ring the big brass doorbell. He just hopes someone is home.

It takes him a minute to recognize Stephen Strange without his signature cloak and blue robes. When the opens the door, he’s dressed in jeans and a pullover. It’s bizarre, like seeing a teacher outside of school.

Dr. Strange looks first a Peter, then his eyes roam down to Morgan, and up to Tony.

“Oh,” he says, unperturbed by the dead man on his stoop. “We’re to that part now, are we?”

Peter feels a painful pressure building in his head. For a second there’s a flash of white light across his eyes. He’s overcome with a burning rage. Dr. Strange knew this whole time. Knew this would happen, and decided to do jack shit about it. He realizes he shouldn’t just sucker punch anyone in front of Morgan, but damn if he doesn’t want to.

“Yeah,” Peter says through gritted teeth. “We’re there. Mind if we come in?”

He doesn’t actually wait for an invitation, just shoves his way into the big, echoing foyer, knocking his shoulder satisfactorily into Strange’s chest. He tugs Morgan along beside him, and by extension Tony, a little caravan. 

When the door has clicked closed behind them, he rounds on Strange.

“So let me get this straight,” he says. “You’ve known for fifteen years that this was going to happen, and you decided the best strategy was to sit around with your thumb up your ass?” 

“Pete,” Tony cautions from the sidelines, casting a meaningful look down at Morgan. 

“Oh, she’s heard ass before,” Peter says.

“Yeah,” Morgan agrees. “I’ve heard ass before.”

Tony places a hand over her mouth and ignores her muffled protests.

“I saw this when I looked into our potential futures, yes,” Dr. Strange says. “And to be frank, up to this point there wasn’t much for me to do, so I chose not to interfere. Will you come through to the library? It will be more comfortable for the child.”

He does something complex with his hands, conjuring an emerald glow, and then they’re all standing in a cozy library – shelves lined with leather-backed books, a pair of squashy sofas set on either side of a roaring fire. 

Dr. Strange shoots his cuffs, and then walks over to a bar cart that includes a number of jars of dried herbs, all in a line, in addition to the usual liquor bottles.

“So why, exactly, have you decided to pay me a visit?” he asks, looking back at their little huddle over one shoulder.

Peter pinches the bridge of his nose and takes a deep breath in and out. _I will not punch the wizard,_ he thinks. _I will not punch the wizard._

“We were hoping you could tell us what the –“

He pauses as Tony clears his throat meaningfully. 

“We were hoping you could tell us what’s happening,” he continues, without the intended profanity. “Tony died, Dr. Strange. I saw it happen. But now he’s here. And he seems a bit too … Solid. For a ghost.”

“Yes, well, you’re right he died. But he was only ever _mostly dead_.”

He does something weird with his voice on the last two words that Peter doesn’t really get. His accent is outlandish, anyway. Maybe it’s just a verbal tick?

Tony snorts and shakes his head. He jostles Morgan over toward one of the couches, and the two of them settle there, Morgan leaning against her dad with her feet pulled up under he school uniform skirt. She’s being abnormally quiet, but Peter’s guessing that it’s all a little much for her to process. She does hang out with superheroes regularly, but outright magic is new for her.

“Alright, Miracle Max,” Tony says. “You care to elaborate on that? Because I’m still not really getting it.” 

_Oh._ Now he gets it. Well, Peter can’t exactly begrudge a man for a joke in the middle of a crisis.

“The Infinity Stones are not just powerful rocks, as I’m sure you’ve realized by now,” Strange says. “They’re also just a little bit … sentient.”

“Right,” Tony says. “Sentient rocks. Not even registering on my weirdness scale right now. Do go on.”

“Well, it seems they were impressed by your sacrifice,” Strange says. “Ill-advised as it may have been. Your body died, too much damage, but they preserved your soul in order to bring you back. You’ve been given a second chance, Stark. Literal new lease on life.”

Peter’s heart lurches, and he reaches out to clutch at one of the bookshelves near where he’s standing. It sends a couple heavy volumes tumbling loudly to the ground. He’s been doing everything he can not to think about this possibility, running instead on anger and panic. He’s got those in reserves. The idea that this could be permanent, that Tony might get to stay, feels like too much of a gift. Peter just knows at any second it’s going to be ripped from his clutching fingers.

“Sorry,” Peter says, possibly to Strange, possibly to the books. “Sorry.”

He bends down to pick them up, and when he stands, he sees Tony giving him a soft look over Morgan’s head. 

“Ok,” Tony says, directing his attention back to Strange. “But if they were going to do that, why not just do it? Why wait ten years?”

“It’s not easy work re-corporealizing a soul,” Strange says as he takes pinches of herbs from several of the bottles in front of him and places them one by one into a mortar. “It took time. You could think of it like a deep sea diver making his way back to the surface. Come up too fast, and the body can’t handle the pressure. Death is so much deeper than any ocean.”

“Oh my God,” Peter groans. “Do you actually listen to yourself when you talk?” 

Tony snorts a suppressed laugh. Strange doesn’t bother to look at him, he’s busy crushing his mystical herbs together with a stone pestle.

“Something on your mind, Mr. Parker?” he goads.

Peter glares at him, but of course he has questions.

“When Tony started, um, re-corporealizing? He did it at my apartment. As far as I know, Morgan and I are the only ones who’ve seen him. Why? I mean, wouldn’t it make more sense for him to return to the Avengers’ compound or something?” 

Strange does turn around at that and narrows his eyes at Peter.

“That’s actually a clever question,” he says.

“Sorry, I’ll try not to do it again.”

Strange glares a little harder, then turns back to his concoction. Pouring the crushed herbs into an infuser, and then popping the infuser into a delicate blue-pattered tea cup. 

“It’s a question of mechanics,” he says, pouring steaming water into the cup. “A living soul, if it wants to stay that way for long, requires a body. Tony didn’t have one anymore, so the stones tethered him to you.”

“He’s a diver, I’m on the boat reeling him in?”

“Well … Yes, actually. Almost exactly like that,” Strange says, sounding stunned. 

“You got really terrible marks for bedside manner in medical school, didn’t you?”

“That’s not relevant.”

“That’s what I thought,” Peter says. “Ok, so a tether. I’ll buy that. But why me?”

“I’ve got a couple theories,” Strange says.

He plucks the infuser out of the teacup, blows gently on the surface of whatever he’s brewed, and carries it over to the sofa. 

“Drink this,” he says, forcing it into Tony’s hands with a sharp clink.

Tony sniff suspiciously at the drink, hesitantly takes a sip. He pulls a face, but then a stern look from Strange encourages him to go back in for another long swallow.

“Best. Guess,” Peter grinds out.

“What?” Strange says, looking at Peter like he’s surprised he’s still there. “Oh. Right. My best guess, it has to do with proximity and repetition. You and Stark were both near the stones together when you were trying to remove the gauntlet, and then you were there with him after the battle. They saw there was a connection, so they chose you.”

“Makes sense.”

“What’s the other theory?” Tony asks, obediently continuing to sip his tea.

Strange gives him an almost smile and a shrug.

“True love?” he says sardonically.

Peter snorts at the joke. Fairytale princess he is not. He nearly misses a flinch from Tony as he does so, artfully disguised by another glug of tea.

“This stuff is disgusting,” he tells Strange. “So is it supposed to help re-corporealize me or what?”

“No,” Strange says. “It’s just tea.”

Tony pauses with the cup halfway to his lips, looks accusingly at the china, and then sets it down on the arm of the sofa. 

“It’s got antioxidants,” Strange says. “It’s good for you. Drink it.” 

“No,” Tony says, stubbornly, crossing his arms. “So tell me what I gotta do, then, to make this Lazarus act permanent. Virgin sacrifice? Daily ritual cleansing in the Hudson? I’m not really planning on making this a temporary visit.” 

Strange sighs and retrieves the only half-empty cup.

“You don’t have to do anything,” he says. “It’s already done.”

He turns to Peter.

“He’s been corporeal for more extended periods lately?”

“Yes,” Peter says. “Almost every day, hours at a time.”

“Right,” Strange says. “So, don’t operate any heavy machinery for a few weeks, and you should be fine. Congratulations on your resurrection.”

Peter more than understands Tony’s skeptical look. He’s been thinking, too, about what price would be exacted from them for this. You don’t get miracles for free. He’s more than willing to pay, he was just bracing for it to hurt.

“Anyway, if that’s it, I really do have things …” 

“Hold up there, Dumbledore,” Tony says. “I’ve got another question.” 

“Of course you do,” Strange says, raising his eyes to the heavens in a silent appeal.

“I have memories,” Tony says. “I have a decade of memories. I got divorced. I got remarried. I went on Avenger missions. I invented things. Last month I remember going to Morgan’s school production of Peter Pan. You were a wonderful Wendy, by the way, babydoll.”

Peter feels ice trickle slowly through his veins. That actually happened. Peter had gone to three different performances because Morgan had begged, and he’s never been able to resist her puppy-dog eyes. Things are beginning to click into place. There’s always a catch. Always. 

“They wouldn’t let me be Captain Hook,” Morgan mutters, discontentedly. “I wanted a sword.”

“A travesty,” Tony agrees. “We’ll sign you up for fencing lessons. Anyway, I obviously wasn’t here for that stuff. So what gives?”

“The stones must have created a reality for you, one that would keep you from questioning things too much, struggling against their work. I imagine it was quite pleasant?”

“Yeah,” Tony says, thoughtfully. “Yeah, it was.”

“Well then,” Strange says, clapping his hands together. “I was actually in the middle of something when you barged in. I’ve taken the liberty of summoning your driver.”

“Oh no, Linda, did we interrupt your stories?” Tony asks.

But the end of his quip comes out in a strangled yelp because he starts speaking right as Dr. Strange whirls his hands again. They all stumble as they land unceremoniously on the sidewalk outside the brownstone. Both Peter and Tony reach out to steady Morgan

“Wizards are mean,” she says, regaining her balance. “I think Harry Potter lied.”

“Yeah, I think you’re right, kiddo,” Peter says.

He’s looking around for the taxi Strange said he called, when he hears a squeal of tires and sees a black sedan pull up to the curve, one wheel bouncing onto the sidewalk. When the driver’s door opens, Happy Hogan flops out. The knot of his black tie is tugged down and to the side, and his suit looks rumpled. 

“Peter!” he calls out. “Christ, kid, there you are. I got a 911 text for this address, what’s …” 

Peter guesses his surroundings are finally catching up with him as his words trail off. His eyes are locked on Tony. 

“Boss?” he says, tentatively. 

“Hey, Hap,” Tony greets him. “Long time, no see I guess.”

Happy takes a few steps toward Tony, and when he’s close enough, sticks out a finger and gently pokes him in the ribs. When he confirms that Tony is, in fact, solid he lets out a deep belly laugh and pulls him in for a back-slapping hug.

“You lucky SOB, I don’t even want to know how you managed to pull this one off,” he says.

Then he tugs on Morgan’s hand and hauls her up into a bear hug, her sneakered feet dangling almost a foot off the sidewalk.

“Is this ok?” Happy says, squeezing tighter. “I’m just feeling really emotional right now.”

Peter’s chest warms a little as he watches the reunion. Best to give them time to catch up, he thinks, so he backs away and slips into an alley adjacent to Strange’s house.

There’s something leaking from one of the dumpster’s back here that makes the asphalt sticky, and there’s an overwhelming smell of decomposing vegetables and the sharp vinegar stench of piss. Honestly, it’s suits Peter’s mood pretty well.

He’s all a jumble. It’s not that he isn’t happy. He is so, so happy. Something in his bones just feels more _right_ now that he knows Tony Stark is back among the living. But now this stretch of time where he had the man all to himself, where they existed completely wrapped up in one another, is over. Peter doesn’t really have a claim on Tony, at least not one to rival his daughter or his best friend. 

Whatever history Tony thought they had together was only a fabrication. Peter suspects it will fade soon, like the details of a dream upon waking. And that’s fine. That’s as it should be. Peter doesn’t deserve any more than that. He knows this because, among all the emotions that are swirling around in his brain, the primary one is guilt. Always guilt.

He crouches down in the alley and leans his back and head against the brownstone wall. He wouldn’t change it, wouldn’t trade the living, breathing Tony out on the street for the false one in his head. But none of that means it doesn’t hurt right now.

There’s a scuffle of shoes at the entrance of the alley, and Peter looks up to see Tony silhouetted in the yellow light of a streetlamp.

“So, Morgan hasn’t had dinner yet, and Happy is taking us all out for cheeseburgers to celebrate, kid. Kid?”

He steps further in and seems to get a good look at Peter crouched against the wall.

“You feeling ok, Pete?”

Peter nods. He can’t really speak right now, with the way his throat is constricted, and he’s carefully controlling his facial muscles so as not to let any tears fall. He stands, but keeps his eyes on the pavement.

He focuses on breathing, on the expansion and deflation of his chest, and it helps a little. Then Tony leans against the wall beside him, their shoulders and elbows touching in a warm line. When he slides his hand into Peter’s and tangles their fingers together, Peter let’s out a sound that’s half-sob, half whimper, and his eyes blur as they stare at the black asphalt. 

“Are these happy tears, or are they more complicated? I’m a little confused here,” Tony says.

“I’m really sorry, Tony,” he says, in a rush of shaky breath. 

“Kid, I think you might want to re-examine your philosophy on apologies. Like, maybe start with only apologizing for things that could, conceivably be your fault, and work from there.”

“I think this might actually be my fault,” Peter says.

“And I don’t think you’re really a stellar judge of these things, Pete. Your track record is kind of shit.”

Peter squeezes his eyes closed.

“Just … Listen. You didn’t go to Morgan’s play.”

“Yeah, no, I get that. It’s all gonna take a little adjustment.”

“Tony,” Peter implores. “You didn’t. But I did.”

“Have I mentioned I’m really glad she’s had you all these years? You’ve been helping take real good care of my girl.”

“You’re being obtuse on purpose,” Peter says. “Look, Dr. Strange said I’m your tether to the real world, right? But if that’s true, then it follows that the reality you were living in wasn’t based on anything you wanted. It was all me. It was the things I saw, and I knew. The things I wanted.”

Tony’s tone goes completely blank.

“Say what you’re trying to say, Peter.” 

“We were only together in your reality because I …”

_Say it, Parker,_ Peter thinks to himself. _Say it now, and then never again._

“Because I love you,” he says. “Because I have for a long time. And I’m sorry, because I forced that on you for years, and I feel like I’ve stolen all this time from you with Pepper and Morgan. And I can’t fix it. But I hate that I did it all the same.”

The quiet builds around them into a tangible thing, heavy on Peter’s chest, making it even more difficult to breathe. 

Then Tony gently reaches for Peter’s chin with his thumb and forefinger and turns his head so that he has no choice but to look him in the eye. Somehow, there’s no blame there, just an unaccountable warmth.

“For the record,” he says. “I think you’re wrong. But even if you’re right, it’s a good sign, don’t you think? That it’s so hard to tell the difference between your fantasy world and mine?” 

It takes Peter entirely too long to parse that, but it makes the ache in his chest transform from cold and empty to searing and just the right side of too much.

“But …”

“What I want is to go have a cheeseburger with Happy, and then go home with you and Morgan, and start actually living the life I thought I had all along. That is, if that’s something you …”

“I do,” Peter says, interrupting him. “I do want that.”

Instinctively, he presses their bodies closer together, burying his face against Tony’s shoulder. When the other man’s arms wrap around him, it’s complete relief. 

“Thank God,” Tony says into his hair. “I really was not looking forward to convincing you to date me again. You are not an easy touch, kid.”

Peter smiles up at him.

“You’ll have to tell me that story sometime,” he says. “Sounds like an ordeal.”

“Oh, it’s quite the saga,” Tony agrees.

He brings a hand up to smooth through Peter’s hair, tilting his head slowly back as he does.

It’s a bit of a disaster of a kiss. Peter’s feet are in a puddle of something suspiciously sticky, the air smells of ripe garbage, and Tony’s mouth tastes of bitter herbal tea when he opens it to Peter’s questing tongue.

But it sends Peter’s stomach swooping in a sensation he feels down to his toes. Of all their kisses – gentle, and desperate, and teasing, and sincere – this is his favorite because this time, this time, Peter knows that it’s real.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has given this fic a little love, and a sincere apology to anyone a re-traumatized with the first chapter. Hopefully, I didn't shank the ending too badly, and it makes it worth the pain.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Avett Brothers' song of the same name. Written mostly while listening to the album "True Sadness" because apparently I needed a good, long wallow.
> 
> I mostly rated this explicit to be safe rather than sorry. There is really very little smut. But there are big spoilers for Spider-Man FFH. Fair warning.


End file.
